Alumni Week Post-Mortem

As this particular improviser gets older, he finds himself less prone to throw himself onstage with an army of others in an improv free for all.

Last year I did the set after the alumni week guys night and never found a suitable opportunity to leave the back wall of the stage; some folks, myself included, thought I had lost my edge. This year I sat out the whole affair, and was congratulated on my wisdom. Go figure.

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3 Responses to “Alumni Week Post-Mortem”

So this is my question, as a student of the Improv game, I want to know. If you could do it again do you think that there’s a way you could keep the Improv idea fresh and interesting. You?re not the first Improver I’ve met that seems to lose the… Well I’m not sure if lose is a good term, but I’ve heard similar stories from many people in the game and I was wondering if you have any sage advice for those of us that feel like we’ll never lose the enthusiasm but fear we might.

Hopefully I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for improv; I’d like to think that in this particular case I was wise enough to spot a potentially bad situation—that is, too many people on stage with nothing to do but one-up each other.

When you get to be an old fogey like me, your criteria for good improv changes. I still remember performing with the Touring Company in Sault Ste. Marie and being very proud of myself for rattling off a series of thinly-veiled fag jokes, to great laughter and applause. Nowadays, it is a premise with legs that I hunt.

I guess that’s what experience is in Improv. I’m hungry to go on stage all of the time, you?re hungry to go on stage at the right time. I do see your point though, I have come across some people in my class that would rather go for the cheap and simple joke, then try something clever. I always had hoped people would either grow out of this or drop out.